A/HRC/43/38 102. The Special Representative reminds Member States and regional and subregional organizations that the sustainable reintegration of children is crucial to ensure sustainable peace and security and to break cycles of violence. The Special Representative calls upon them and on other reintegration actors to provide sustainable political, technical and financial support for such efforts, and calls upon all of them to join the Global Coalition for the Reintegration of Child Soldiers. 103. The Special Representative welcomes recent ratifications of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and urges Member States that have not done so to sign and ratify the Optional Protocol, and to enact national legislation and policies to prohibit and criminalize the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups. She also calls upon Member States to endorse instruments improving the protection of conflictaffected children, such as the Paris Principles, the Safe Schools Declaration and the Vancouver Principles. 104. The Special Representative encourages the Human Rights Council to maintain the practice of including recommendations on the protection of children affected by armed conflict when considering or adopting resolutions on country-specific situations or thematic issues, and in the universal periodic review process, with particular attention paid to the implementation of such recommendations. The Special Representative also encourages the Human Rights Council to continue to include child rights violations in its resolutions establishing or renewing the relevant mandates of special procedures. 105. The Special Representative welcomes the continued attention paid to the impact of armed conflict on children in States parties’ reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Committee. In that regard, all relevant Member States are urged to include, as appropriate, specific references to information on grave violations against children, on gaps in their applicable legal and policy frameworks and on accountability initiatives in their submissions to those bodies. She encourages the relevant United Nations entities to use the recommendations of those bodies as advocacy tools with the Member States concerned. 18

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